D&D 5E (2014) Would a "lucky guy" class fit your setting?

[Noctem]

I wouldn't allow the kind of character suggested in the OP. Essentially it makes everyone else on the team almost irrelevant.

You can crit whenever you want in combat, all you need to do is optimize crits and you can beat any encounter that is designed to be a straight fight. Same for being attacked I'm guessing, you can just get lucky and your opponent fumbles right?

To work around this, you can create encounters that don't revolve around straight combat. Alternate goals and the like to make encounters better. But wait! This class can just pull anything needed to solve any problem it is presented with. It's the batman utility belt issue. Even if presented with skill related problems the character can simply do it even though the problem would have allowed another PC to shine.

And that's the entire problem, this class essentially would run the entire game as a no-challenge stroll through the plot. The DM can't challenge the group or create an issue the group has to deal with because you can just resolve it instantly thanks to your class features. "This door is locked.. Why don't we let the rog..." "Nah I have my auto lock pick with me, I'll just use that!".. "Hm there's a magical forcefield in this room! What does the wiz.." "Oh I know what this is, my arcane book here tells me that this is blah blah we can get around it by doing blah blah."

I would never allow a character like this in my campaigns. If you want to RP that your character gathers random stuff while in town like a hoarder and you then think of clever ways to use those items at a later time: No problem!

 

[Saeviomagy]

I was referring to the third son who inherits Puss rather than Puss himself. Does he simply just do what Puss says? It's a matter of perspective - does the warlock simply do what the patron says?

You could potentially run it like that, but I doubt most DMs are going to do so, and I doubt most players would go along with it, because it would make for a tedious playing experience.

And the animals in these fool stories act in the capacity of the patron. In some of them, the agency of the fool is much more evident. Emelya the Fool gets his powers from a magical pike, which he releases (note the similarity - the third son in Puss similarly saves the cat's life by deciding [agency!] not to drown him) - and then he lies about on the stove and refuses to obey any commands by authority figures (from his sisters-in-law to the Tsar himself). A "reasonable" person would have eaten the pike or drowned the cat - but the fool has uncanny insight that most of us don't.

A reasonable person would not have eaten the pike or drowned the cat because they are clearly not normal: they both speak. Neither the third son, nor Emelya do anything that wouldn't be done by many other characters.

It is their standing outside of social norms that allows them to "think outside the box" and act in ways that shook up the social order.

Emelya doesn't have a standing outside of social norms, nor does he think outside the box. He refuses to work except for reward, and then the storyteller gives him unlimited wishes, which he then uses on immediately obvious things.

Hence I think your distinction between the fool and the trickster (which, as you correctly point out, the game also lacks) is overstated. The fool at court (the jester) could criticize the ruler when others couldn't and get away with it, because he drew on a greater power from outside society. Same with the majnoon (holy fool) in the Muslim world - their gifts came from God. The whole point of the fool narratives is that the fool succeeds for reasons that seem to make no sense to most others, but they succeed nevertheless, and you can't argue with success. These are paradigmatic stories in many cultures that problematize link between skill, hard work, and success (especially in highly inegalitarian societies), and therefore bear great role-playing potential.

I distinguish between the fool (such as Emelya, or the third son) and the trickster (jesters, majnun, taoists and other 'wise' fools). A genuine fool is not a protagonist. He is a passive participant: the story would happen no matter what. If the fool actually possesses wisdom and actually drives the story then he is the trickster: smarts dressed up in a foolish exterior.

 

[empireofchaos]

You could potentially run it like that, but I doubt most DMs are going to do so, and I doubt most players would go along with it, because it would make for a tedious playing experience.

The same would apply to the Fool character, and its cats, pikes, and other benefactors.

A reasonable person would not have eaten the pike or drowned the cat because they are clearly not normal: they both speak. Neither the third son, nor Emelya do anything that wouldn't be done by many other characters.

I disagree. Just because they are not normal and speak does not constitute a valid reason to let them go. The son (the future Marquis de Carabas) in Puss lets the cat live with no guarantee that the cat can be useful to him. In fact, it is likely that a "normal" person would have been more likely to drown a talking cat because of the cat's obvious potential to get him into great trouble. The "Marquis" trusted the cat, where many others would not. Ditto Emelya and the Pike - Emelya does not test the pike's power until it is safely back in the frozen water. He trusts it - a foolish action, which unexpectedly turns out to be very wise.

Emelya doesn't have a standing outside of social norms, nor does he think outside the box. He refuses to work except for reward, and then the storyteller gives him unlimited wishes, which he then uses on immediately obvious things.

Again, disagree. Emelya is outside social norms. He lays about, where peasants are supposed to "work to death" (as the song goes) to survive or get ahead. Notably, he does so both before and after he gains unlimited wishes from the pike. He talks down to authority figures - sisters-in-law, the governor, and the Tsar. He uses the wishes when he needs to (to chop wood, have the sled move by itself, to score a righteous princess), but he does not do what most people would have done - to immediately wish for limitless wealth and power, but largely goes on with his life as before until he runs into state power. When he becomes Tsar at the end of the story, he largely does it to please his princess, not really for himself. And when the Tsar, after having thrown Emelya (and his own daughter!) into the sea in a sealed barrel, reappears at the end of the story, Emelya forgives him, which is probably not what normal people (like his brothers) would have done. In other fool narratives, older brothers frequently try to kill their fool sibling to use the magical power he had at his disposal more "rationally".

I distinguish between the fool (such as Emelya, or the third son) and the trickster (jesters, majnun, taoists and other 'wise' fools). A genuine fool is not a protagonist. He is a passive participant: the story would happen no matter what. If the fool actually possesses wisdom and actually drives the story then he is the trickster: smarts dressed up in a foolish exterior.

I note that we are no longer talking about whether there is a fool archetype (which was the original point of discussion, and which is obviously true), but only about whether the archetype is playable as a PC. I think I've shown that the distinction between fools and "wise fools" is overwrought, and largely a product of a specifically modernist, Horatio Alger-type ethic (only those who apply their natural talents succeed and are deserving of success). Not only that, but if you wish, you can reduce the narratives of characters commonly regarded as heroic to the same kind of absurdity. Odysseus, who obviously earned at least one level with his quick thinking at Troy wanders about for 11 years, protected by Athena the whole time, until Poseidon deigns to forgive him and allows him to return home. The whole story would have happened no matter what. Moses can't speak up to save his life, has Aaron parlaying on his behalf with pharaoh, and then Yahweh destroys Egypt through the plagues, softens Pharaoh's heart to let the Hebrews go, then hardens it in order to destroy Pharaoh, then forces the people to wander around for 40 years while he feeds them manna from heaven, until old Moses dies. Maybe these two are fools also (but we are all the gods' fools).

The only real question here is whether you can come up with mechanics to make the class fun to play and a good fit with other classes. Everything else seems irrelevant to me. And those who don't like it don't have to play it or allow it. For my part, I don't like barbarians.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In the vast majority of fantasy, superstitions are real and superstitions are all about managing luck in some form. The exact origin of that luck is different between settings, chiefly in whether or not the luck is caused by sentient forces, but luck exists in everything from Grimm's fairy tales, to Diana Wynne Jones, to the work's of Tolkien, to Robert Jordan. Indeed, in The Hobbit, the beginning of the story revolves around the need of 13 Dwarves to select a 14th member of their party because 13 would bring terrible bad luck. As it turns out, without making that choice, the quest would have failed. In the vast majority of fantasy worlds, luck is real - even tangible.

Upon further consideration, it occurs to me that there is no way of discerning whether any given improbable event has come about by luck or whether it's a deus ex machina, unless you physically have a personification of luck who is there and taking credit for it. It would appear identical to the reader, regardless of which way was true.

So, whether any given reader is likely to interpret such an event as A) a tangible manifestation of luck, or B) an instance of poor writing; is going to depend on whether that reader is more inclined to believe that a) the author has re-written the laws of causality such that future events can chain backwards to create their own causes in the past, or b) the author thought that something improbable would make for a more interesting story, especially given that the characters or the audience may attribute this to luck anyway.

YMMV, but neither of those options are really acceptable to me. The difference is whether it's a shaky premise or a shaky execution. I want to give Tolkien some credit and say that his premise was okay, and he only failed (somewhat) in the execution, because he's supposed to be a pretty decent world-builder and poor execution is much more forgivable to me.

 

[Imaculata]

Sounds like this sort of class could be a fun addition, if it were to be balanced well. It would need an interesting game mechanic to work with though. Maybe luck is a resource, that can be spent towards defense of offense? Maybe the player must beware his karma, and his actions may attract good or bad karma.

 

[Celebrim]

Upon further consideration, it occurs to me that there is no way of discerning whether any given improbable event has come about by luck or whether it's a deus ex machina, unless you physically have a personification of luck who is there and taking credit for it. It would appear identical to the reader, regardless of which way was true.

Yes. That is quite right.

There is a story where a man is travelling in Tibet, and he comes upon monastery where it is the custom to flip a coin as an augury every day. He observes the ceremony and the coin comes up heads. After spending the night in meditation, the man observes the ceremony the next day and again the coin comes up heads. So he says to the host, "It's come up two heads in a row." And the host says, "No, it has come up heads 37,845 days in a row." And the man is taken aback and says, "Are you sure that coin is fair?", and the monk says, "How can one know?"

So, whether any given reader is likely to interpret such an event as A) a tangible manifestation of luck, or B) an instance of poor writing; is going to depend on whether that reader is more inclined to believe....

You could have stopped there and made a much stronger point. But in the case of Tolkien's writings, there is strong internal evidence in the stories that the meaning of the story regards this "luck". In the chapter, "Shadow of the Past", Tolkien takes on the problem head on when Gandalf observes to Frodo that Bilbo the Shire putting his hand down in the dark deep inside a mountain in a forgotten passage right on to the lost One Ring of power had to be the luckiest coincidence in the entire history of the universe. The writer is you might say calling the readers attention to what the reader might regard as the writer's own poor writing. He directly addresses the problem that it would appear the writer keeps appealing to deus ex machina. And then Gandalf says, "If luck it was.", and begins to expound on a theory by which there are competing wills in the world arranging it to their desires. Gandalf you might say, doesn't believe in luck. And Tolkien, by bringing the readers attention to the fact, is telling the reader that perhaps he should not believe either in luck or that Tolkien's stories are careless writing simply because they contain astounding coincidences, but instead have deliberately been crafted with those astounding coincidences to some designed end.

And we don't have to appeal to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for that. We can look at the meaning of the Hobbit. At the end of the story, Gandalf sums up what the story means, in what is almost Tolkien's thesis statement:

"Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!" Said Bilbo.
"Of course!" Said Gandalf. "And why should not they prove true? Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!”

that a) the author has re-written the laws of causality such that future events can chain backwards to create their own causes in the past, or b) the author thought that something improbable would make for a more interesting story, especially given that the characters or the audience may attribute this to luck anyway.

There is more that exists than is in your philosophies.

YMMV, but neither of those options are really acceptable to me.

Well, strictly speaking option 'a' is not forbidden by the laws of physics. Quantum mechanics in the form it currently exists allow the possibility that a cause could come after the effect, and there are experiments being conducted now to try to detect retro-causality. But really, anything that accurately predicts the next state of things from their current state and acts on it can be said to be influenced by future events, which makes your own brain something of an imperfect retro-casual engine. And there are many things we could suppose might be true about the physical universe which would allow retro-casuality. Your 'law' is on shakier ground than you suppose.

The difference is whether it's a shaky premise or a shaky execution. I want to give Tolkien some credit and say that his premise was okay, and he only failed (somewhat) in the execution, because he's supposed to be a pretty decent world-builder and poor execution is much more forgivable to me.

Exactly where do you think he failed in the execution? What effect do you think he was trying to achieve?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You could have stopped there and made a much stronger point. But in the case of Tolkien's writings, there is strong internal evidence in the stories that the meaning of the story regards this "luck". In the chapter, "Shadow of the Past", Tolkien takes on the problem head on when Gandalf observes to Frodo that Bilbo the Shire putting his hand down in the dark deep inside a mountain in a forgotten passage right on to the lost One Ring of power had to be the luckiest coincidence in the entire history of the universe. The writer is you might say calling the readers attention to what the reader might regard as the writer's own poor writing. He directly addresses the problem that it would appear the writer keeps appealing to deus ex machina. And then Gandalf says, "If luck it was.", and begins to expound on a theory by which there are competing wills in the world arranging it to their desires. Gandalf you might say, doesn't believe in luck. And Tolkien, by bringing the readers attention to the fact, is telling the reader that perhaps he should not believe either in luck or that Tolkien's stories are careless writing simply because they contain astounding coincidences, but instead have deliberately been crafted with those astounding coincidences to some designed end.

One unlikely coincidence is usually acceptable to most audiences, especially if the writer hangs a lampshade on it.

As well, prophecy and phenomenal cosmic forces are beyond the purview of simple luck. If you have a mysterious force engaged in a contest with another force, and they can each conceive of some end scenario, and they can calculate the entire causal chain necessary in order to get to that point, then that shouldn't actually require retro-causality to pull off. It might be difficult to contemplate, based sheerly on the scope involved, but it's just straight-forward cause-and-effect from the moment it's all set into motion.

That's not quite what this thread is about, though. Unless I've lost track of things, you want a class of character that can contribute in meaningful ways (and not die) due to the sorts of lucky coincidences that befall protagonists. Something like always having the right thing in its pockets, failing in productive ways, and being in the right place at the right time? You could do that, if it was all being controlled by a mysterious cosmic power that was working toward an end goal, but there are issues with that in an RPG.

First of all, I've never known a pawn of prophecy to die unexpectedly against a troll. You don't usually get characters with mysterious luck that only gets them halfway to a goal before it fails them.

Second of all, it would be hard to let a player exercise any of that power, since the player doesn't know what the end goal is, and anything that they think might be the goal could be incorrect. As a minor example, it wouldn't be satisfying for the player to spend a Foresight point (or whatever) to declare that they packed iron-soled shoes this morning, only for it to later be revealed that the spiked floor (which they were hoping to cross with the shoes, and was the reason why the player spent the resource in this instance) is also heated in such a way that iron-soled shoes would make the floor impassable. It would seem like the DM is just messing with the players, even if it was set up ahead of time and could have been independently verified, and in that case it wouldn't be lucky at all for the character to have packed such a thing.

And of course, on the last point, it's not terribly satisfying to play a character that is being manipulated by fate. Protagonists in fantasy novels often express similar feelings, when they find out about it.

So the question remains, how would you represent such a character in an RPG? I mean, first you need to figure out the in-game reason for whatever it is that seems like luck to the characters. Then, you need a way to mechanically represent that, without causing unfortunate side-effects. Since I don't know what you're specifically trying to model, I can't offer much input on how to model it, though I would highly recommend that whatever mechanic should prove immune to testing - if the character always has the right item on hand, then it should fail to have the right item on hand if the situation was contrived based on the premise that the character would have the right item without knowing about it beforehand - in much the same way that cursed items appear to be functional items until circumstances warrant.

 

[Minigiant]

Well if D&D has multiple gods who grant clerics the ability to call down flame strikes, revive the dead, and summon angels.... which can be eaten by dragon's, demons, and monsters,

why couldn't a deity sprinkle some luck on a person they are interested in and watch hilarity ensue until said lucky guys succeeds in their goal or dies horribly.

I mean, how many clerics, paladins, invokers, favored souls, avengers, and chosen have been sent to slaughter.

 

[Celebrim]

One unlikely coincidence is usually acceptable to most audiences, especially if the writer hangs a lampshade on it.

Whereas, Tolkien is string unlikely coincidence after unlikely coincidence on purpose, in the same way that a very good writer might confidently write a run on sentence (see the description of the clock striking the hour in 'Masque of the Red Death') or a sentence fragment because they are trying to achieve some effect on purpose. And moreover, Tolkien even is carefully crafting the way the story is told so as to make the coincidences seem a bit less unlikely - all that careful world building and maps and so forth. And when Tolkien brings up luck, he's not hanging a lampshade on things in the same since that 'Order of the Stick' is.

As well, prophecy and phenomenal cosmic forces are beyond the purview of simple luck.

How would you know? Moreover, when people speak of manipulating their luck - like a lucky rabbits foot, or hanging a horseshoe over the door, or throwing a bit of salt over their shoulder - what do you think they are imagining they are manipulating? In the animist conception of the world, everything in the world that exhibits behavior is exhibiting an act of will. In this conception of the world, luck is the purview of phenomenal cosmic forces. Indeed, chance - chaos - is a primordial and preeminent cosmic force. What do you think luck is, particularly in the context of a fairy story?

If you have a mysterious force engaged in a contest with another force, and they can each conceive of some end scenario, and they can calculate the entire causal chain necessary in order to get to that point, then that shouldn't actually require retro-causality to pull off. It might be difficult to contemplate, based sheerly on the scope involved, but it's just straight-forward cause-and-effect from the moment it's all set into motion.

Agreed. But it will look like retro-causality in that the result is influences the causes.

That's not quite what this thread is about, though. Unless I've lost track of things, you want a class of character that can contribute in meaningful ways (and not die) due to the sorts of lucky coincidences that befall protagonists. Something like always having the right thing in its pockets, failing in productive ways, and being in the right place at the right time? You could do that, if it was all being controlled by a mysterious cosmic power that was working toward an end goal, but there are issues with that in an RPG.

You can do that regardless of how you flavor or skin the source of the luck, just as you can flavor or skin hit points, or saving throw bonuses, or magic as having different sources without changing the mechanics that you use to represent those things.

First of all, I've never known a pawn of prophecy to die unexpectedly against a troll.

Well, unless that was really the characters destiny all along. And so far, I've not stated in any way exactly what role the character is to have in fulfilling a prophesy, much less what the prophesy is.

You don't usually get characters with mysterious luck that only gets them halfway to a goal before it fails them.

No, you get those characters, but we don't usually read the stories about those characters - which is something else Tolkien explicitly observes in the book.

Second of all, it would be hard to let a player exercise any of that power, since the player doesn't know what the end goal is, and anything that they think might be the goal could be incorrect.

Or, everything that they think and do could be correct in the sense that it happened. There is nothing that prevents lucky guy from finding his own path, and for that matter the power behind his luck could well be some perverse thing wanting to demonstrate the absurdity and impermanence of everything. The character's luck could be some deities idea of a cosmic joke, and the pointlessness of it all could be the point. But this is mere flavor. You're reduced in my opinion to quibbling now. The point is there is a place for such a character in fantasy, and we could find ways to mechanically represent it. Arguing that the character doesn't have infinite luck, or that infinite luck would be unfair, may well be true, but doesn't invalidate the concept.

And of course, on the last point, it's not terribly satisfying to play a character that is being manipulated by fate. Protagonists in fantasy novels often express similar feelings, when they find out about it.

First, that's a player preference. I think it might well be interesting to play a character that is being manipulated by fate, and play out expressing feelings of dissatisfaction or trepidation about the whole process or any other way that a character might respond to finding out that he's a pawn in a play. Indeed, I think it might well be interesting to play a character who is not consciously in control of his own superpowers, but whose superpowers are (from the character's perspective) mysteriously manifesting in ways he doesn't control and maybe doesn't always approve of. That to me sounds like a load of fun. But secondly, how would you know whether you are being manipulated by fate, or whether you were manipulating fate? The same concept and the same mechanics could handle both types of characters - a destined character and a character that is controlling their own destiny - and indeed there is a lot of interesting tension (to me) in those two things. I could definitely see a character flip-flopping back and forth between thinking's he's mastering fate, and being mastered by it. A character that meaningfully through his mechanics is exploring the question of whether we really have free will to me sounds awesome.

So the question remains, how would you represent such a character in an RPG?

There are probably lots of ways to do it, and I'm working on a system that is flexible enough to really capture all the various nuances that a player might want to bring to the overall archetype so that the class is at least as varied as say rogue, wizard or fighter. The obvious thing is that the class has the power to manipulate the game itself. The class itself should be mediocre and very vanilla in terms of numbers of skills, combat ability, hit points, and so forth. At it's core, it doesn't excel at anything particularly. But various things I'm playing with for the 'Paragon' concept:

1) Without any special training, the character is just a preeminent example of a member of his race. The things his race is good at, he gets better at. Mechanically, I'm doing this with class abilities that depend on your race, and with racial feats being bonus feats for the class. For example, human paragons get more skill points and can flexibly select a small number of class skills. Elven paragons get improved racial bonuses to spot, search, and listen, and always treat those as class skills. And so forth.

2) Without any special training, the character just gets generally good at things. Mechanically, I'm representing this as an improved schedule of ability score enhancements.

3) Good saves. Because the character is lucky, he just tends to luckily avoid all problems.

4) Luck: In my game I already have something called a 'destiny point' that all characters receive, and can spend (and replenish) to get rerolls, turn critical hits made on them into normal hits, buy bonus dice, and other small bad luck mitigating mechanics. Most characters only have a couple and can usually afford to spend one per level gained. The Paragon gets an additional pool of points that can be spent like destiny points and which automatically replenish after each long rest. Likewise, feats that manipulate destiny point use (for example, getting additional bonus dice whenever you buy bonus dice with a destiny point) are on the Paragon's bonus feat list. Because such feats would rarely be invoked by most characters, they would rarely get chosen, but for a Paragon they are extremely useful. I'm planning to create a significant number with different flavors to represent everything from comic relief to inspiring heroes.

5) Foresight: Divination as a natural talent seems like a good way to represent luck. Augury is a very good example of a spell that is based on 'knowing the omens' or luck. This could end up as a class ability or a collection of feats or both.

6) Narrative manipulation: I'm not sure whether to make this optional abilities or core class abilities, but the idea is that player would have limited ability to alter or invent anything about the environment that hadn't previously been pinned down. The player can make a reasonable suggestion about something that could be true, but which isn't yet established, and the DM will insert that detail into the universe. If the player jumps out of the window of a building overlooking a city street, the player can spend a resource to specify that 'luckily' a hay wagon is passing underneath the window at that exact moment, and his fall will be cushioned. Or the player can specify that luckily, the drawer of the old desk contains a forgotten silver letter opener which can be used to stab the were-rat, or that an ally's carriage just happens to be passing on the street at that exact moment that they need a get away vehicle, or any other reasonable manipulation of the game universe that doesn't contradict what is already established and known to the character.

In general, I see such a character as being quite fun to play, but not necessarily (if I do my job well) stronger than any other class. It certainly can't manipulate the universe better than a wizard, but it can do so in a somewhat more flexible manner and without necessarily spending actions. It certainly can't reliably perform as many skills as a rogue nor as reliably do as much bonus damage, but it can match the rogue perhaps over short bursts. It certainly can't fight as well as the fighter, but it's not useless in combat and - like the fantasy characters that inspire the concept - it can pull through spectacularly in key moments. If you need someone to throw a boomerang basically blind and critically hit sparky-sparky-boom-man, it might be the only successful attack he makes all day, but lucky guy is the guy to save the day. In general, the idea is for a class that doesn't shine anywhere in particular and is generally weak most of the time compared to other classes, but does get to pick when it might have shining moments of awesomeness.

 

[Kobold Stew]

You could get partway there with what's in the PHB -- it wouldn't be on all the time, but it would be significant:

1. Halfling
2. with Lucky Feat
3. Diviner 2.

By level 6 at latest you could do pretty well. I'd build it on a rogue chassis, but Bard would also work.

Fun?